appease the widow's grief.
Kieft was inexorable. Nothing but the blood of the criminal would
satisfy him. In vain they represented that he was the son of a beloved
chief, and that already he had fled far away to some distant tribe.
Our sympathy for these men is strongly excited as we read their
sorrowful yet noble remonstrance: "Why," said they,

"will you sell brandy to our young men? They are not used to
it. It makes them crazy. Even your own people, who are
accustomed to strong liquors, sometimes become drunk and
fight with knives. Sell no more strong drink to the Indians,
if you will avoid such mischief."

While this question was being agitated, the Mohawks from the upper
part of the Hudson, came down in strong military bands, armed with
muskets, upon the lower river tribes, attacked them with great
ferocity, killed quite a number of their warriors, took the women and
children captive, and destroyed their villages.

The lower river tribes all trembled before the terrible Iroquois.
Large numbers of these subjugated tribes fled from the river banks,
and from the region of Westchester, to Manhattan and to Pavonia, where
Jersey City now stands. Here, stripped and panic-stricken, they
encamped, "full a thousand strong."

The humane and judicious patroon, DeVrees, in whom the Indians seem to
have reposed great confidence, had a beautiful estate several miles up
the river, at a place called Vreesendael. It was a delightful spot of
about five hundred fertile acres, through which wound a fine stream
affording handsome mill seats. The meadows yielded hay enough
spontaneously for two hundred head of cattle.

DeVrees, finding his house full of fugitive savages, on their retreat
to Pavonia, at the mouth of the river, paddled down in a canoe through
the floating ice to fort Amsterdam, to confer with Director Kieft upon
the emergency. He urged upon the Director that these poor Indians,
thus escaping from the terrible Iroquois and grateful for the
protection which the Dutch had not denied them, might easily be won to
a sincere friendship. On the other hand, some of the more fiery
spirits in the colony thought that the occasion furnished them with an
opportunity so to cripple the Indians as to render them forever after
powerless. They sent in a petition to Kieft, saying,

"We entreat that immediate hostile measures may be directed
against the savages. They have not yet delivered up the